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Ravelry is a dangerous place sometimes. It is the only place on the web where the ads are interesting and relevant to me. Skimming the titles of forum postings can also lead me into mischief. Today there were two incidents.

I'd never heard of illusion knitting before. A forum posting mentioned a Dr Who pattern, so my curiosity got the better of me. It is a free pdf at Wooly Thoughts. There are some examples of illusion knitting and some really interesting math-based knitting. I downloaded the pattern for the Mona Lisa. I still wasn't totally clear on illusion knitting. Google led me to a site that was new to me, WikiHow. Not only does it supply definitions, it supplies instructions. WikiHow says:

Shadow knitting, or illusion knitting, is a process of knitting such that the finished piece has a hidden image only viewable from an angle. The effect will be created by alternating rows of two colored yarns so that the raised stitches from one row block out the flat stitches of another row.

The illustration shows a piece of knitting that viewed straight on looks striped. It looks like a fun thing to try some day. Maybe in March. February is looking like it'll already be chock-full of knitting fun.

My style of knitting is a mutant form of continental. It's worked okay for me for all these years, but it is becoming apparent that I need to make some changes. I've done a couple of knit alongs lately and it looks like everyone else's socks look better than mine do. I'm seriously considering taking a class and may have happened upon a good one via a Ravelry ad. Annie Modesitt is offering online classes in combination knitting. I think I'll wait until Ravelympics and Iron Knitter are over to try this.